Southerland says farm bill proves he can compromise

WASHINGTON – Steve Southerland didn’t get close to everything he wanted from the farm bill President Barack Obama signed into law on Friday.

The original House version he supported would have cut $40 billion over 10 years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. The compromise bill that passed Congress cuts only $8.6 billion.

And a controversial provision Southerland authored that would have required millions of able-bodied SNAP recipients to work, volunteer or attend job training to keep their benefits was replaced by a voluntary pilot program available to a maximum of 10 states.

But the second-term Republican from Panama City is far from disappointed.

He thinks the new law takes important strides in making the decades-old food stamp program more accountable to taxpayers.

And Southerland said he feels “vindicated” because his role as a member of the House-Senate conference committee that hammered out the compromise bill proves he’s not the hard-liner opponents claim.

“We worked to address the (work requirement) issue, countering the accusation that we won’t work with people,” he said. “And we’ve got something that everyone can be proud of. Look, when the Congressional Black Caucus steps up and says, ‘We’re going to support this piece of legislation,’ it’s a sign we operated in good faith.”

Circumstances were dramatically different in June, when Southerland’s original work-to-eat amendment was blamed for killing the farm bill. Many Democrats refused to back a bill they said unfairly penalized the poor.

Critics said that version of the farm bill would have encouraged states to slash SNAP rolls because they would pocket half the savings. At the time, progressives vilified Southerland as someone more interested in radical ideology than sensible policies.

One of those critics was the Robert Greenstein at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning Washington think tank that examines federal spending and policy. He called Southerland’s proposal “unprecedented and draconian.”

Greenstein isn’t happy with the cuts in the final bill, but says the new law represents reasonable compromise. In a recent commentary, he singled out the pilot program Southerland agreed to as something that “could provide useful information on how to better enable participants to secure and retain jobs.”

Under the new law, states will apply for federal money (a total of $200 million was set aside) to administer and evaluate programs designed to train and find jobs for those who qualify for SNAP benefits.

Individuals can’t be punished if they don’t comply for reasons beyond their control. They must be offered a corresponding slot in a work or training activity, and they must be provided with adequate transportation and childcare.

Southerland, who spent more than a year visiting and talking with organizations that help the poor get back on their feet, said the pilot program is patterned after welfare reform in the 1990s. He said including the program in the farm bill took more than a year of hard work and negotiating by his office to help promote “the blessing of work.”

Not everyone is convinced that one of the House’s staunchest conservatives deserves credit as a consensus-builder.

Two new independent studies of congressional voting records suggests Southerland remains one of the GOP’s most reliable votes.

He supported fellow Republicans 97 percent of the time in 2013 on floor votes where the majority of one party opposed the majority of the other, according to an analysis by CQ Roll Call. That percentage, shared by one other Florida GOP lawmaker, was the highest among House Republicans from the Sunshine State.

A study by National Journal ranked Southerland the 42nd most conservative member of the 435-member House.

So how much will Southerland’s initial SNAP proposal and his moderated approach matter in his re-election race against Graham?

Not much in a district that’s among the most politically polarized in the nation, said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Report which rates Southerland a slight favorite.

“For most of these people (in Florida’s Second Congressional District), unless Steve Southerland announced he was a communist or Gwen Graham announced she was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, it wouldn’t matter,” he said. “The race is more about turnout than anything else. So I’m skeptical that something like this is going to dramatically alter the race.”